I have an 11' ugly stick that I use mainly for chunking, and I have a Diawa Longcast surf reel loaded with 50# Berkley Gorilla braided superline on it now. The reel has worked fine and never let me down, and I wish I could have it re-engineered to be a baitrunner. I normally set my rod up and sit it into the sand spike, then just keep an eye on it. I am thinking about the baitrunner type reels because I fear 2 things.
1) My attention is taken away from the rod, and it gets pulled into the surf.(This happened to my uncle 3 years ago, and he then bought a baitrunner)

2) I get a hit and the stiff response from the rod being in the sand spike causes the fish to spit out the bait, whereas the baitrunner reel would offer a softer response to the hit by letting out some line.

These are my 2 main concerns

The question is, IF I get a new reel, which one do I get. The Shimano 6500, 4500, or do I go with a Penn liveliner?

I have seen friends use a Shimano 6500B and the Penn Liveliner. I have discovered that the mechanism on the Penn is different from the Shimano. I like the shimano with just lifting the lever. I dislike the way Penn's lever works.

If you have decided to go with Shimano, make sure to get the B version. Okay!

I don't want to go with the circle hooks because I am so ingrained with the "setting the hook" phenomenon that I would unintentionally misuse the circle hooks. I know that in the heat of the moment I would yank that hook right out of the mouth of whatever just hit me.
Holding the rod is the best way to do things, but--holding the rod 100% of the time is really not feasible for me. Looking around, and then missing the hit is an issue that I am concerned with.

Please post replies, I do want to see opinions here, thanks.

BTW, opinions more centered around the reels themselves would be cool.

The baitrunner is a major adavantage and the penn 560L is MUCH better quality then the Shitmano reel. put like 25 yards of 20 pound mono before putting on the braid so the line doesnt spin on the spool

I've used the Baitrunner a few times this year. I hate to admit it but once the bait is in the water it's just as good as my Penn 975 conventional. In fact, because you can adjust the freespool mechanism to various levels of tension, it's got a leg up on conventional. The big difference is that you can still throw heavier weights with conventional. But so far I would recommend the Baitrunner style reel to anyone who likes to chunk in the surf, and doesn't want to learn to fish conventional or doesn't want to spend money on a new outfit. It can also double as a standard spinner if necessary.

I have both reels. I suggest the shimano over the penn. The shimano is much larger with more power. The shimano will disengage the baitrunner feature after 1 full rotation, the penn will not, you must manually disengage the baitrunner. Forgetting to do this will lead to a horrible birds nest with a fish on. They both do not like sand very much, the liveliner is a simpler design and easier to maintain, but given a choice I pick up the shimano everytime. They can both survive being dunked but they will need to be lubed up a few hours later.
If you don't want a huge reel go with the 4500, but i love my 6500.

go to a fresh water bait store and buy a line release, it hooks onto the reel seat before the reel, you leave the bail open and put the line into the release, you can adjust for tension, when a fish strikes the line releases, it only cost a few bucks and comes on and off in a second.

I use the penn 5600 live liner on a 10'ugly.I do mostly pier fishing but I do some on the beach to.Its been great.Ive seen and used the bait runner 6500 and well first off the shimano reel is alot bigger than the penn reel so on the 11 foot rod the penn will look small but will still perform big and the shimano will maybe balance alittle better cause of size.the penn doesnt have and auto switch like the shimano and other brands meaning on the penn u Have to click the button to go to the bigger drag. on the others u can A.flip the button or B.just reel in the reel and it will change.so in that respect there are many opinions.I havent had any problems with picking the rod up and clicking the switch I kinda prefere it that way but it seems that most that use the shimano or other reels like saying that they like using the handle to switch drags hhhhmmm?there are different grades of reels for penn to i think the lower grade is captiva made in japan and the higher grades are made here in the US.well hope this helped .the choice is up 2 u .but i do love my penn 5600

I like my Shimano baitrunner. I have always had problems with penn reels and never with shimano. However, I just saw another solution. Take a piece of aluminum wire, wrap one end around the stem of a spinning reel, form a hook in the other and use it to keep the line in place. when the fish pulls, it will straighten out the wire hook and the line will peel off with zero resistence.